Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[mostly-harmless]

Details, details, ....

[ruff_hi]

email sent to PAL ...

Bob,

We haven't heard anything official for a while except for (apparently) some comments in-game that are particularly hard to share with the team. Where are you at with your techs for trade and what are your tech plans (research and trade) for the future.

Also, we would like to discuss the possibilities of a longer term tech trade agreement.

Ruff

[sooooo]

Reply from PaL:

Hi Ruff,

A periodic tech update is a very good idea. Just to recap, the tech trade as it stands is as follows:

Writing + Alphabet for Iron Working + Sailing + Archery + 40 bottle debt towards a tech which we will discuss later.

We are currently about 17 turns away from alphabet.

We hope to do the tech trades in 3 steps:

1) Writing for Iron Working (whenever possible)
2) Sailing for Alphabet (Whenever Realms get Sailing)
3) Archery (whenever Realms get it).

As for future tech trades, we plan to get code of laws after alphabet, and we hope to trade Maths and Monarchy with other teams.

How soon can we expect Iron Working and Sailing?

Lets move onto more pressing, long term issues. To really optimize our empires we really need a 3rd technology partner. 3 is the perfect number as:

1) It will starve those not in the alliance, allowing for an easy fight
2) There are 3 distinct technology routes
3) It reduces competition, as the remaining teams can’t make an equally effective alliance until astronomy – This is why 2 from 1 island and one from the other is so great.

What are the relations like on your Island? Getting a 3rd technology ally on this island might be a little tricky, both teams are very quiet on a diplomacy front.

Just to keep you guys in the loop, we have a very loose agreement with team Rabbit to exchange alphabet for Monarchy, but they have ignored our contact attempts recently and generally been rather aggressive with there units around our borders.

So if this is going to work, we really need either Inca or Maya on board, with a full formal agreement (details to be discussed later) which allows technology cooperation and coordination, with nothing coming in and out of the alliance.

Inca or Maya can not be too far from Monarchy, as they have a religion each. We have tried to contact Inca and Maya but haven’t heard anything back.

whiplash

[ruff_hi]

Inca = ? Edit: Templar!
Maya = ? Guess: Imperio

I wish they would use the team names.

If 3 is the magic number, then PAL will become a run-away tech leader on their land and could take the whole continent.

[Sullla]

It sounds rather clear that PAL would like us and the Templars to feed them techs while they run over the other two civs on their continent. Uh - that wouldn't really be a good thing.

I would respond to them in much the same way that we've been communicating with Templars: very polite, cautious answers, emphasizing that we'd like to work with them but can't commit to game-long alliances so early. Mention that we feel we need to at least meet with Rabbits and Banana before we can pick sides permanently.

In the short term, we can mention that we are likely to finish researching our side of the tech bargain a little sooner than 17 turns. (I don't think we need to state exactly what techs we do and don't have at the moment though.) We can also mention again that Monarchy is a planned future target of ours, and might make the basis for a trade later on.

It's nice to see that there is some tension with them and Rabbits. I was beginning to wonder if the other two civs were going to do anything other than sit back and let PAL expand into omnipotence.

[Zeviz]

While Templars might not be too dangerous as a tech alliance partner, I am not looking forward to PAL crushing the other two teams on their continent. So I'd politely say that we'd like to at least meet the remaining teams before committing to an exclusive game-long alliance.

[sunrise089]

Does what PAL claims above contradict that Templars told us PAL said?

[ruff_hi]

draft response to PAL ...

Whiplash,

Re Tech Update

Team RB will be ready to make the following trades as soon as in-game mechanics allow ...

1) Writing for Iron Working
2) Sailing + Archery for Alphabet

Re Longer Term

Your trading block of 3 does sound like a nice number and, providing all 3 can tech at approximately the same rate, will make a distinctive break on the other 3 teams. I must say that I have not divided up the tech tree enough to see 3 distinct paths. Anyway, I'll take your word for that. I wonder what sort of impact 'no tech broking' will have.

Our relationship with Imperio is slowly improving but diplomatic contact remains intermittent.

Our relationship with The Templars is also improving and we have started to discuss some possibilities of tech trade with them. As have you.

While a trading block of 3 might prove the most efficient, Team RB is not currently enthusiastic about formally entering such a long term, strategic relationship - especially as we have yet to meet Banana and Rabbit. We remain very interested in short term, opportunistic trade deals that might (will?) help with building long term relationships.

Ruff
Your Voice to the Realms Beyond Team

3) It reduces competition, as the remaining teams can’t make an equally effective alliance until astronomy – This is why 2 from 1 island and one from the other is so great.

Why do they think that we cannot met the other teams until astronomy? Can't they count?

[regoarrarr]

The only thing I can think of is that they have the western edge of the continent and are planning on not allowing open borders to any boats from our continent?

or they can see something that we can't

[mostly-harmless]

The stepwise tech trade is not going to happen, as they have to have Alphabet first. By the time they got Alphabet we already have Iron Working.
We don't need to tell them we have swapped research, so the reply is fine as it is. We just do the trade in one swoop.

Re: the boat issue. If they really control access to the other continent via closing / opening borders we can "demand" open borders to allow trade routes as a next step for further cooperation.

mh

[Zeviz]

The galleys can sail through ocean covered by somebody else's culture while you have Open Borders, right? If that is the case, the only way PAL can deny us contact with other civs on their continent is by closing the borders, which doesn't look nice coming from supposed allies.

As for the draft email, it looks good to me, but you might want to mention that we have to at least meet the other civs before deciding to form a game-long alliance against them.

[ruff_hi]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless
The stepwise tech trade is not going to happen, as they have to have Alphabet first. By the time they got Alphabet we already have Iron Working.
We don't need to tell them we have swapped research, so the reply is fine as it is. We just do the trade in one swoop.

Good point - we have to wait for any tech trade for them to get to alphabet. However, we cannot trade for Alphabet until we have cleared writing. So, I've modified the opening part of the email as follows:

Re Tech Update

Team RB will be ready to make the following trades (as originally agreed) as soon as in-game mechanics allow ...

1) Archery + 40beaker coupon for Writing
2) Iron Working + Sailing for Alphabet

[T-hawk]

Originally posted by Zeviz
The galleys can sail through ocean covered by somebody else's culture while you have Open Borders, right?

No, at least in single player vs AI games. Galleys and work boats can only sail into your own ocean tiles. (And I think those of a teammate/Permanent Ally, but pretty sure not a plain vanilla Open Borders partner.)

[ruff_hi]

any comments on the draft email or is it good to go?

[sooooo]

Looks fine to me.